FanHouse Kentucky

It's a marriage of mutual necessity. He needs them -- and, oh, do they need him, as sure as Ashley Judd can fill a "Go 'Cats'' t-shirt. The anguished looms at Kentucky need John Calipari because he'll hustle, sell the program, recruit stud players, kiss babies and embrace the psychotic romance that is Big Blue Nation. And John Calipari needs Kentucky because, well, he still isn't roundly accepted as an elite coach, a perception he'll change if he resurrects a fallen dynasty.

INDIANAPOLIS -- On his tippy toes, he might be 5-10, very easy to lose in the enormity of a football stadium where faces look like matrix dots and crowd noise drifts to the ozone. But no one strikes a larger pose in the Midwest today than Tom Izzo, public defender of the Big Ten's battered self-esteem. If trends and hipness start on both coasts in America, college basketball in the heartland also has been taking on an irrelevant, plodding look, to the point I stopped watching.

And I live in Chicago.

There was a time when February belonged to college basketball and the intricate puzzle of creating a 65-team bracket from a list of 340-some-odd candidates.

Then we got Rick-rolled by the steroid investigation.

So to get things where they should be here's a steroids tip that doesn't involve digging through someone's garbage:

Investigate the NCAA Tournament bubble.

Well, in case you haven't noticed, the holidays have slowed things down around here. Us Clemson folk tend to do the family and friends thing around Christmas time which leaves little time for blogging...

But I digress.

Clemson takes on the Wildcats of Kentucky tomorrow in the "Some stupid advertiser's name goes here" Music City Bowl. Kickoff is at 1PM--eastern standard time. The game is in Nashville, Tennessee making it a Noon kickoff locally.

I'll refrain from the the usually "Keys to Victory" for this one ... that would just be too easy. Ya know, run the ball well, don't turn the ball over, etc.

Instead, I'll give a nice "Go Tigers!" and wish the boys well--especially those seniors playing in their last game as a Clemson student-athlete.

Oh ... and just like every other week, I'll predict a Tiger victory. Clemson 31, Kentucky 24. The Tiger running game will be too much for a Kentucky defense that allows 189 yards per game on the ground.